Today was the day.
Today Edit Constance Rose (Eddie) Sousa was no longer just a doctor, she was at the starting line of her dream job. Today, she started the long and hard journey of becoming a surgeon. The thing she had been working so hard for since she was nine and she broke her arm and a surgeon had fixed it. She had sparked something in her, and answered all of Eddie's questions and Eddie was hooked.
And, thirteen years later it was finally happening. At just twenty-one (okay twenty, but twenty-one in October, so practically twenty-one) she had graduated medical school and was now starting her internship and her residency at the top surgical residency programs in America. Seattle Grace. She was also the youngest intern to date, and out of all her options--she had gotten into all the programs she applied to--she chose Seattle Grace for it's prestige but also for the fact it was the farthest from her home.
Eddie, due to her age, had to stay close to home when she picked her college and medical school. Not because her mom, step-Stan, and younger half sisters would miss her and they wanted her close to home. No, that wasn't the case at all. They had to keep her because she was a minor. Eddie was positive if her mom, step-Stan, and her sisters were happy to have her gone long before now.
Eddie had never had a particularly close relationship with her mom. She was her accident baby. A baby she got pregnant with from a fling with a married man she had "fallen in love with" and he left her not wanting Eddie to ruin his perfect life, and because her mom couldn't give her baby away, even if she didn't really want her either. Her mom treated her as if she was a burden to raise, she sucked all her fun youth away.
And, when Eddie was five, her mother met her second love of her life, Eddie's Step-Stan, Stan Elliot, a handsome, young New York Real-estate agent to the filthy rich, who was also filthy rich. He fell for her mother, and simply put up with Eddie, as if she was some ugly piece of furniture her mother refused to let go of, even after it broke. And, that is the start of when Eddie started to feel as if she was unwanted in the family they created. And, it was obvious when two years later her sister Amelia was born, followed two years later by Beth, and three years after that CeCe, and then a year after that Daphne.
Eddie was treated more like a red-headed step cousin than a daughter or sister. And, the line was clear. Eddie was left behind while her mom and Step-Stan took her sisters, their daughters, on exotic locations or even Disneyland. And, her sisters even called her their "half sister" as if they didn't share some blood. Or, they simply never talked about her.
Eddie had tried for years to get them to even like her. Did her best at school, didn't argue, always nice. But, it didn't matter. Soon, the escapes to school or even the local library was better than being somewhere she wasn't wanted. It was the fuel that helped get her to this spot today...well along with her eidetic memory and the fact she was a literal genius.
Eddie simply left her forwarding address for her family, but she doubted she would ever hear anything from them again. Their lives wouldn't be affected by her absence.
But, she tried to push those depressive thoughts out of her mind as she looked up at Seattle Grace. It loomed over her. It looked so much bigger than last night when she was here for the surgical intern mixer.
This was it, her new workplace. Her new life. Her new future. Her lifelong dream was becoming a reality.
It was going to be hard, but worth it. Just like all the good things in life.
She took in everything Dr. Richard Webber, the Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace Hospital, was saying as he showed them around the hospital. The intern locker room, the cafeteria, the labs, CT and MRI machines, and now he was showing them the room they all wanted to spend time in, the OR.
While they were looking around the pristine OR when Eddie saw an older blonde woman slip in trying to not draw attention to herself. Eddie recognized her from the night before at the mixer. Most likely because she didn't want to be called out on being late for her first day.
"Each of you comes here hopeful. Wanting in on the game. A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors." Dr. Webber said as he looked at the newest crop of interns, all bright-eyed and eager.
"The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition."
When he said that Eddie noticed that people were now eyeing others. As if looking for any sign of weakness, or who would be the easiest to climb over on the way to the top. Surgery was competitive, and if you wanted to be the best, you had to prove it, and fight for your time. But Eddie was not the type of person to trample on one to get ahead. She believed in working hard, not taking the easy way out.
She knew that she was receiving some looks from her fellow interns. She knew they all thought she was going to be easy pickings because of her age, the fact that she looked like a little doll, at least according to her friend Eli always told her.
Eddie looked at the people in the OR with her. Some seemed scared, some excited, some cocky, and some determined. Eddie didn't know which expression was on her face, but she was determined to become the best surgeon she could be.
"Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That's up to you." Dr. Webber told them.
Eddie's determination intensified and she lifted her head slightly, as the Chief's words echoed through her mind.
This was her arena. And she was going to show everyone just what she was made of.
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The intern locker room was a flurry of activity as they got ready for their first shift. Eddie had just pulled her light blue scrubs over her light purple long-sleeved top, when she heard a resident start calling out names.
"Okay, Martin, Robinson, Bond, Hawkins."
Eddie already knew she was on Dr. Bailey's service, though she didn't know who said doctor was yet.
She quickly started to braid her hair into two braids as she heard the blonde from earlier, who's locker was right next to hers say, "Only six women out of twenty."
"Yeah. I hear one of them's a model. Seriously, like that's going to help with the respect thing?" The Korean said with a scoff.
Eddie raised an eyebrow at the slightly judgmental tone.
"Yeah, well I bet it helped with the student loans though." Eddie said getting the two girls attention.
"You're Cristina and Edit, right?" The blonde asked, butchering her name pronouncing like the word, edit like how you would fix a paper. "It's Eh-det" Eddie corrected, stressing her name, something she was used to. "But you can call me Eddie, though." Eddie said as the curly haired intern, Cristina nodded.
"I'm Meredith." The blonde greeted.
"Which resident you assigned to?" Cristina asked, "I got Bailey."
"The Nazi? Yeah, me to." Meredith said.
"I got Bailey as well." Eddie said as she tied off her braid.
"You got the Nazi?" A male voice asked, all three girls looked over to see a nice looking, in a sweet boy-next door sort of way, brown haired man looking at them. He smiled awkwardly at them.
"So, did I. At least we'll be tortured together, right? I'm George O'Malley, uh, we met at the mixer, you had a black dress with a slit up the side, strappy sandals..." George O'Malley started to ramble.
The three women shared a look with one and other, trying to hold back their laugh.
"Now you think I'm gay." George said, realizing what his rambling sounded like to them.
"Uh-huh." Cristina hummed as she walked away.
"No, I'm not gay, it's, ah, it's just that, you know, you were, I mean, you were very, unforgettable." George tried to explain.
Eddie thought it was sweet, weird, slightly creepy but sweet. It was obvious, he liked the older blonde.
"O'Malley, Yang, Grey, Sousa, Stevens." The resident called.
"And I'm totally forgettable." George muttered lowly enough that Eddie could hear. She gave the older man a look.
"It'll be okay George, I'm impressed most men don't remember what a girl wears, but just a little less details next time." Eddie said. "Oh, I'm Eddie by the way, Eddie Sousa."
"Thanks," George said, "and...uh...nice to meet you too." George said as they made a beeline towards to resident, with Yang leading the way.
"Bailey?" Cristina asked as she stopped in front of the stern-looking resident.
"End of the hall." The doctor said.
As they walked towards their new resident, Eddie seemed to be the only one who wasn't surprised. Dr. Bailey, The Nazi, was a short, plump, black woman with an intense look in her eye.
"That's the Nazi?" Cristina said, shocked.
"I thought the Nazi would be a guy." Pointed out George with narrowed eyes.
"Of course not. They'd never give a man that nickname, they'd probably praise him for being intense and strict." Eddie pointed out, earning a nod from Cristina in agreement. Eddie looked at her new resident. She was hopeful she'd be a good teacher despite her frightening reputation.
"I thought the Nazi would be...the Nazi." Meredith whispered.
"I think the swastika is frowned upon in any setting." Eddie said, rolling her eyes.
Eddie sensed another person coming up to walk beside her. Eddie glanced over to see a pretty, tall, leggy blonde join them as she tied her hair up. This must be Stevens.
"Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant, and they call her Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice." The pretty blonde said hopeful.
"Let me guess. You're the model." Cristina said with a scoff and slightly dismissive. Stevens gave her a sneer, then plastered on a bright sunny smile.
"Hi, I'm Isobel Stevens, but everyone calls me Izzie." The blonde intern, Izzie, introduced herself to the older woman.
Eddie could see this was not going well. It seemed like her resident didn't like overeager interns. Dr. Bailey stared at the woman in front of her with a blank look, not taking Izzie's hand. She then turned her attention to her four other interns, as if judging their potential.
"I have five rules. Memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you, that's not gonna change." Dr. Bailey said after a moment. Eddie tilted her head slightly, as if trying to figure out if her resident truly meant those words.
"Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you, you answer every page at a run. A run, that's rule number two." Bailey continued on, motioning to the pagers on the ledge of the nurse's station.
Eddie grabbed hers and followed her resident who was walking down the hall. She quickly attached the pager to the waistband of her scrubs. She was now right behind her resident next to Cristina.
"Your first shift starts now and lasts forty-eight hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain, you run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop and don't complain!" Bailey said as she lead them across a skywalk and into another hallway, stopping in front of a room labeled on call.
She opened the door to show a small room with two bunk beds pushed against one wall. Not at all comfy, but Eddie assumed it was because if they were comfy, doctors would never get anything done.
"On call rooms. Attendings hog them, sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to rule number three, if I'm sleeping, don't wake me, unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there, not only would you have killed someone, you would have also woke me, for no good reason, we clear?" Dr. Bailey continued.
Her interns nodded. After a moment, Meredith raised her hand, Bailey looked at Meredith.
"Yes?" Bailey asked.
"You said five rules. That was only four." Meredith said.
"Rule number five. When I move, you move." Bailey said, as if by coincidence Bailey's pager went off.
She quickly started down the hall. Yelling for people to get out of her way. Their first shift officially started, as Eddie and her fellow interns followed their resident.
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At lunch, Eddie sat down in between George and Cristina with a sigh as she opened up her bottle of lemonade and took a sip.
"Katie, Meredith and my patient, is officially one of the most annoying teenagers ever. I tried to calm her down about her pageant, and she told me I needed to wear more makeup if I wanted to be considered more than "pretty"." Eddie said rolling her eyes with a huff. "She reminds me of my teenage classmates when I was eleven."
"You had classes with teenagers at eleven?" George asked looking at the younger girl with a surprised look on his face.
"Uh-huh," Eddie answered, "I skipped a lot of grades school as a kid. Started a year earlier I was barely four, and skipped third, fourth, and fifth grade."
She blushed slightly at the shocked but mostly impressed looks from her fellow interns.
"Are you a genius or something?" A male intern who Eddie didn't know asked.
"I don't believe intelligence can be accurately qualified, but I do have an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, I can also read about 20,000 words a minute...." Eddie said, at his glazed over look she said lamely and flatly, "yes I'm a genius."
"How old are you? Eighteen?" Cristina asked, trying to judge the younger girl's age by appearance. She assumed Eddie was just young looking, but she was trying to see how old her fellow intern was.
"I'm twenty, I'll be turning twenty-one in October." Eddie replied as she popped a French fry in her mouth.
She then looked over to Izzie, who wasn't eating and just playing with her food. "You should eat you know. It helps keep your energy up."
"This shift is a marathon, not a sprint, eat." George added on to the younger girl's comment.
"I can't." Izzie said with a slightly disgusted look on her pretty face. "You try eating after performing seventeen rectal exams. The Nazi hates me."
Eddie nodded sympathetically. Eddie didn't know if it was because Bailey disliked her, or if it was because someone actually had to do it, maybe a bit of both. Though, the one thing Eddie did know was that she was glad she wasn't the one doing rectal exams.
"The Nazi's a resident. I have attendings hating me." George said trying to make the blonde feel better.
"Oh, come on, residents and attendings are meant to be hard on us, we're learning and they're teaching, and we're going into a field which is very much life and death. Unlike annoying teenage patients, who can hate you because you don't look like you stepped off a beauty pageant stage." Eddie said as she took a bite of her cheeseburger.
"You know Meredith's inbred?" Cristina asked, joining the conversation.
"Like it's uncommon around here to be a doctor's -" George started, but Cristina cut him off.
"No, she means royally inbred. Her mother is Ellis Grey." Eddie said, she and Meredith had made small talk while waiting for Katie's CT scans.
Eddie felt bad for Meredith. It was like plastering on a big bullseye for her. With a mother like that, people would assume she got where she was through her very famous mother. And, others would try to suck up to her, in hope of getting to meet or get their work in front of her.
"Shut up, the Ellis Grey?" Izzie said in awe.
"Uh-huh." Cristina said.
"Who's Ellis Grey?" George asked confused.
As Izzie and Cristina laugh. Eddie tried to explain, "Oh Georgie, the Grey Method."
"Where'd you go to med school, Mexico?" Cristina asked.
"First of all, rude." Eddie said, defending George, "second of all..."
Just then Meredith arrived and slammed her tray on the table as she sat down. Just as frustrated as Eddie was over their teenage beauty queen patient.
"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands." Meredith said, as she looked around the quiet table. "What?"
"I mean yeah, but I think she is just a bit spoiled. She's clearly not used to not getting her way." Eddie said, trying to empathize with the young blonde patient.
She was annoyed with her, yes, but she didn't want to off her. She was being the typical teenage girl, a spoiled one, but a normal teenage girl none the less.
Their conversation was soon interrupted by Dr. Preston Burke, the head of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He swaggered up to them and spoke clearly with a not-so subtle hint of arrogance that bothered Eddie.
"Good afternoon interns. It's posted, but I thought I'd share the good news personally. As you know, the honor of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the OR today, I get to make that choice."
That got all the interns attention. Eddie had heard about it, and would love the opportunity to be in an operating room. Cristina shifted in her seat, Eddie had a feeling Cristina liked Burke, whether it was because she was interested in cardio and Burke was a very well respected and renowned cardio-god or if it was because she was attracted to him. Or possibly both. Eddie didn't see the appeal, something about him rubbed her the wrong way.
Burke clapped his hand on George's shoulder.
"George O'Malley. You'll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations." Burke informed them.
"Me?" George squeaked as Burke walked away, saying a sarcastic, "enjoy."
The whole table became quiet, some looking unbothered, but most looked annoyed. If she couldn't be picked, she was glad her fellow intern has gotten the surgery.
"Did he say me?" George asked again, as if he didn't believe it. He was clearly panicking. "He said me, right Ed?"
Eddie nodded. "Congrats Georgie," she answered rubbing his arm encouragingly.
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Eddie and Meredith were in Katie's room after bringing her back from the CT scan when an older man and woman, Katie's parents, entered the room, clearly looking distraught and worried as they rushed to their daughter's side.
"Katie, honey, mom and dad are here." Katie's mom said as she grabbed her daughter's hand and soothed her hand over her daughter's blonde locks.
"They gave her a sedative for the CT scan, so she's a little groggy." Meredith informed the parents.
"Will she be all right?" Katie's mother asked worriedly looking at the two of them.
"Our doctor at home said she might need an operation, is that true?" Katie's father asked worriedly.
"What kind of operation?" Katie's mother asked, panicking even more.
"Mr. and Mrs. Bryce, we're surgical interns on your daughter's case and we cannot answer your question about if she'd need an operation, not until we get her CT results and confer with her doctor, but her doctor would be happy to answer any questions you have, would you like us to get him for you?" Eddie said smoothly, before Meredith could mumble something off, her new friend looked like a startled deer in the headlights.
Meredith shot her friend a grateful look. She was sure she'd mumble off something about not being a doctor...or well, Katie's doctor. It would have been embarrassing.
"Yes, please thank you so much." Katie's mother said, smiling at the younger girl who couldn't be much older than her daughter, based on looks.
"No problem, we'll go get him for you. If you need anything, please ask the nurse out at the nurse's station." Eddie said with a smile as she and Meredith quickly hurried out of the room.
"How did you know how to do that?" Meredith asked quietly a few doors down from Katie's room so her parents wouldn't hear her.
"I am quick on my feet." Eddie said with a shrug. "I don't know really, I had to learn to speak for myself, and speak well, as young as I am. Most people didn't and still don't take me seriously."
Meredith nodded as they went to look for the attending on Katie's case. Instead, they ran into their resident.
"Katie's parents have questions. Do you talk to them, or do I ask Burke?" Meredith asked the shorter woman.
"No, Burke's off the case, Katie belongs to the new attending now, Dr. Shepherd, he's over there." Bailey said, pointing to a group of attendings that were at the end of the hallway, before leaving her interns to get the attending.
"I'll go get Shepherd," Meredith said.
"Okay, I'll go get Katie's CT results. I'll see you in a bit." Eddie said.
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It was nineteen hours into their first shift as surgical interns and Bailey's five interns were all sprawled out on empty patient beds in an empty tunnel of ground floor of the hospital.
Eddie was leaning against the wall reading a medical journal with a highlighter in hand half-listening to George who was sulking after his disaster of a first surgery with Burke a few hours previous.
"007. They're calling me 007, aren't they?" George asked, with pain evident in his voice as he looked at his fellow interns.
"No one is calling you 007." The two blonde interns said at the same time.
"I was on the elevator and Murphy whispered 007." George informed them for the third time.
"Oh, how many times do we have go through this, George, five, ten? Give me a number or else I'm going to hit you." Cristina threatened fed up with George's sulking.
"Murphy whispered 007 and everyone laughed..."
"He wasn't talking about you." Izzie said, trying to sooth the man's worry.
"You sure?" George asked, hopeful.
"Would we lie to you?" Meredith asked.
"And if they were, so what Georgie? We're interns, we're bound to make mistakes. Murphy's a dick. Ignore him, you didn't kill anyone, and you were picked for a reason, you'll do better next time." Eddie said as she flipped down her magazine. "It's our first day, don't let it get you down. Use this as motivation to do better next time."
"Exactly!" Cristina exclaimed agreeing with the younger girl, "007 is a state of mind."
"So says the girl who finished top of her class at Stanford and the girl who did that same from Yale before turning twenty-one." George bemoaned as he rolled around in the wheelie chair.
"Georgie, I may be smart, but trust me, I always had people like Murphy trying to tear me down. I'm young and smart, it can intimidate a lot of people. And, people like Murphy, do things like this, mind games, because he isn't as good as someone else. Trust me, just ignore it and do your best, we're behind you, don't let people like Murphy get you down." Eddie told him.
George's eyes softened in sympathy towards the youngest resident. He didn't know how she put up with it. She was possibly always the smartest person in the room, yet had to fight to be there, she was probably more mature than the people who thought they had the right to be there.
"Sometimes, I forget how young you are Sousa, and your just not a pretty face either." Cristina said as the younger girl laughed. "You are a girl genius."
Just then Meredith and Eddie's pagers went off. 9-1-1 for Katie Bryce. Both women practically flew off the beds as they raced towards their patient. When they got to her room, both were shocked that the blonde teen was fine, just bored, the young intern gave er a frighteningly good "mother" stare and slight scolding before they both left the room.
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Later into her shift, Eddie who was working on some charting in the tunnels once again. When her pager went off. Knowing that even thought it could once again be Katie being bored, she ran quickly through the hospital, because of the 9-1-1 page she got. She was glad she did, because when she got there, the room was in a flurry of panic.
"What happened? Did someone page Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Bailey?" Eddie asked one of the nurses, Lauren, quickly taking the girl's chart from her.
"We did," Lauren, one of the nurses, confirmed before informing the kind, young doctor, "she is having multiple grand ma seizers, now how do you want to proceed Dr. Sousa?"
Scanning the chart, Eddie noticed she was already maxed out on diazepam and lorazepam, quickly coming up with a game plan.
"Okay, give her six milligrams of phenobarbital and please page Bailey and Shepherd again." Eddie instructed, trying to stay calm and level headed. Where the hell was Meredith? Or Bailey and Shepherd for that matter? But, right now, all that mattered was saving the young girl seizing.
"Pheno's in," Informed a different nurse, as Katie stopped seizing and started to flatline. "Code Blue! Code Blue!"
"I need a crash cart right away!" Eddie said as she rushed to grab the paddles. "Charge to two hundred."
Just then Meredith entered the room, shocked to see something was actually wrong, and not just Katie being annoying. She stood back, letting her fellow intern work.
"Charged. Clear! She's still in V-Fib." Informed the nurse after it didn't work.
"Alright, charge to three hundred." She shocked the girl again, seeing no change. Come on Katie, she thought, we have to get you back to your pageants. "Charge them to three-sixty!"
Nothing once more.
"At sixty seconds your supposed to..." started the nurse, quickly being cut off by her voice, that mustered as much authority no one dared questioned it.
"Charge again!"
"I see sinus rhythm. Blood pressure is coming up!" said the nurse near the crash cart.
"Please page Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Bailey again?" The youngest doctor asked.
"Pressure is returning, rate's coming back. Good save, Doctor Sousa." Lauren, said with a smile. Eddie smiled as she wiped some sweat the formed on her forehead.
"What the hell happened?" Dr. Derek Shepherd, the newest attending to Seattle Grace Hospital, asked staring at the younger doctor and the still-glued-to the wall Meredith.
"She had a seizure and her heart stopped." Eddie informed him, looking to a flustered Meredith with a sympathetic look.
"Seizure? You were supposed to be monitoring her." The dark-haired attending harshly to the older blonde intern.
"I checked on her and she -" Meredith managed to mutter.
"I got it, just go." Derek ordered, as Meredith left hurt and discouraged as she left.
"What happened?" He asked, turning his attention to Eddie.
"I got a 9-1-1 page and when I got here, I immediately asked for both you and Dr. Bailey to be paged. I read in her chart that she was maxed out on Diazepam and Prazepam so I ordered Phenobarbital. It stopped the seizing but she flatlined. So I shocked her four times to restart her heart." She explained rather calmly though, with her adrenaline wearing off she could feel how nerve wrecking the situation had been.
"Good work, Sousa," her attending said, Eddie was shocked he knew her name, seeing as this was the first time they met, but she didn't think anything of it, clearly somewhat impressed by her work. Then with a softer voice than he used with Meredith he said, "You can go now too, I've got her."
Eddie smiled softly and nodded making her way out of the room with a small smile on her face, she had done it, she saved her.
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Early the next morning, twenty-four hours into her first shift, all the surgical interns were asked to meet in a conference room. Eddie was once more reading an article, this time from a popular French medical journal while she sat next to Cristina who was practicing suturing a banana.
"What are you two doing?" Meredith asked as she joined her two fellow interns.
"I'm suturing a banana, with the vain hope that it wakes up my brain. Girl genius here seems to be doing the same with her article." Cristina replied dryly, and George laughed slightly.
"What're you smiling at, 007?" Cristina snapped, making George stop smiling and frown.
"I know you get mean when you get tired, but now apologize to George." Eddie said barely lifting her eyes from her journal. It reminded Meredith, Cristina, and George of a mother lightly scolding a child.
"Fine," Cristina said with a long sigh, "I am sorry..."
"You know what? I don't care. I comforted a family, and I get to hang out in the OR today. All is well." George said.
"Does anybody know why we're here?" Izzie asked as she joined them.
They didn't have a chance to respond, when Derek walked in like a man on a mission.
"Well good morning. I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon, I'm going to ask interns for help. I've got this kid, Katie Bryce. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to her meds. Labs are clean, scans are pure, but she's having seizures. Grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's going to die, if I don't make a diagnosis." Derek explained looking around at the surgical interns.
"Which is where you come in. I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes, I need you to play detective, I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures. I know you're tired, you're busy, you've got more work than you could possibly handle. I understand. So, I'm going to give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Katie needs surgery. You get to do what no interns get to do. Scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure. Dr Bailey's going to hand you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast, people. If we're going to save Katie's life, we have to do it soon." Derek said before leaving, as Bailey put the files on the table, as surgery hungry interns all pounced to grab a case file.
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About fifteen minutes later in the hospital library Eddie, Meredith, and Cristina were sitting in one of the stacks trying to figure out what was wrong with Katie.
"Well, she doesn't have anoxia, chronic renal failure or acidosis. It's not a tumor because her CT's clean. Are you seriously not going to tell me why you won't work with Shepherd?" Cristina asked looking at the blonde.
"No. What about infection?" Meredith asked.
"No. There's no white count, she has no ceteal lesions, no fevers, nothing in her spinal tap." Eddie said not even glancing at the chart she had grabbed, having memorized it already.
"Just tell me." Cristina said.
"You can't comment, make a face, or react in any way." Meredith said looking between her two new friends.
"They had sex." Eddie said as she flipped through another case file, and both older woman looked at her shocked. "What? You're not exactly hiding it, the sexual tension was obvious."
The two older interns look at her. What was it because of her age or because she was a genius, they thought she wouldn't date? She was a smart, yes, but she wasn't social inept. She had dated age appropriate boys in her teenage years, and a year and a half long relationship in medical school.
"I'm a genius, not a nun." Eddie said with a laugh, causing the other two women to laugh.
As the two other interns continued their chat, and mock the fact that beauty pageant contestants had talent, the youngest one closed her eyes and replayed the conversation she had with the younger blonde.
"Wait, wait, just be quiet for a second?" Eddie asked, as an idea bloomed in her mind. The other two interns looked at her confused, her pretty hazel-green eyes opened a few seconds later and she smiled brightly.
"That's it! Ha! How didn't I think of it sooner?" Eddie said as she sprang up.
"What, what is it?" Both women asked.
"Rhythmic gymnastics!" Eddie said as she grabbed her things. "She does rhythmic gymnastics as a talent for her beauty pageants, remember?"
"Yeah? So?" Meredith asked, not getting why the younger girl was excited.
"Just come on! I'll explain on the way." Eddie said, urging her two friends up, both followed her confused as she explained her idea.
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"Dr. Shepherd!" Eddie called seeing the handsome attending entering the elevator. "Dr. Shepherd, just one moment"
She put her hand in the way of the closing door. "Katie competes in beauty pageants." Cristina said as she stood by the younger doctor's side.
"I know that, but we have to save her life anyway." Derek said.
"She has no headaches, no neck pain, her CT is clean." Eddie said. "There is no medical proof of an aneurysm."
"Right." Dr. Shepherd agreed.
"What if she had an aneurysm anyway?" Cristina added.
"There are no indicators..." Dr. Shepherd started.
"But, she twisted her ankle." Eddie said. "A few weeks ago when she was practicing for the pageant."
"Oh good," Dr. Shepherd said, "I appreciate you trying to help.."
"She fell." Meredith said.
"When she twisted her ankle, she fell" Eddie continued. "It was no big deal, not even a bump. Got back up, iced her ankle, and everything was fine."
"It was a fall so minor that her doctor didn't even think to mention it when I was taking her history but, she did fall." Cristina added.
"Well you know the chances that a minor fall could burst an aneurysm? One in a million, literally." Derek said as the elevator, closed on them.
The three young doctors looked at each other, annoyed, this was the first lead that they had on a medical puzzle, and the attending that asked for their help didn't seem to be bothered. When they decided to leave the elevator doors opened again.
"Let's go." Derek said.
"Where?" Eddie asked confused as she, Cristina, and Meredith followed him anyway.
"We're going to find out if Katie is one in a million." Derek informed them.
The three interns watched the scan alongside Derek.
After a double take of the screen, Derek said, "I'll be damned."
"There it is." The tech said, pointing to the aneurysm.
"It's minor, but it's there." Derek said, taking a closer look, along with the three interns. "It's a subarachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain."
As they were heading to tell her parents what they found out, Derek was explaining to the interns a bit more about the brain bleed.
"She could have gone her entire life without it ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot..."
"It explodes." Cristina and Eddie said together.
"Exactly!" Derek said with a snap of his fingers. "Now, I can fix it. You three did great work. Love to stay and kiss your asses, but, I got to tell Katie's parents she's having the surgery."
"Katie Bryce's chart please." Derek asked a nurse, who handed it to him.
"Dr. Shepherd, you said you'd pick someone to scrub in with you, if we helped?" Cristina asked, hopeful.
"Oh yes." Derek said, as he looked between the three women. "Unfortunately there is not enough room for the three of you...so Meredith, you'll get to scrub in."
And, that good feel that Eddie had felt since figuring out what was wrong with Katie Bryce, popped, then and there.
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Eddie somehow couldn't help but feel slighted by the fact that Shepherd chose Meredith over her for the surgery, even though she was the one who found the one-in-a-million chances. And, she was one of the interns on this case in the beginning to, not just Meredith.
Cristina was mad as well, she too wanted in on Katie's surgery to and called Meredith a shark. Especially since she claimed she didn't want in on this surgery in the first place and thought she only got it because she slept with the attending. If Cristina wanted to lose to anyone, it would have been Eddie, at least she actually diagnosed Katie.
Eddie tried to keep her mind off of it, by checking up on one of Dr. Bailey's patients, since she was currently off Katie's rotation because Meredith was watching over her. When she heard Dr. Webber talking with another man, an intern, based on the color of his scrubs.
"She's still short of breath. Did you get an ABG or a chest film?" Webber asked.
"Oh, yes sir, I did." He said with a nod.
"And what did you see?" Dr. Webber inquired, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with the post op patient.
"Oh, well, I had a lot of patients last -" The man tried to back track, Eddie had a feeling he had a big ego and didn't think he could do so wrong.
"Name the common causes of post-op fever." Webber ordered the younger man.
He pulled out a little notebook from his white coat, but Webber stopped him saying, "From your head. Not from a book. Don't look it up, learn it, it should be in your head. Name the common causes of post-op fever."
"Uh...the common causes of post-op..." He started to stutter out.
Webber then loudly asked, "Can anybody name the common causes of post-op fever?"
The interns all pull out their books, but Eddie didn't need to, her eidetic memory helped in situations like this. She had memorized them a while ago, with an eidetic memory, it was sort of a bottom of the barrel thing for her.
"Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The five W's. Most of the time it's wind, splinting or pneumonia. Pneumonia's easy to assume, especially if you're too busy to do the tests." Eddie spoke up, causing the chief of surgery to look at his youngest intern who was standing at the end of another patient's bed.
Webber looked at the other intern with a pointed look before looking at Eddie.
"What do you think's wrong with 4B?" Webber asked intrigued.
"The fourth W, walking. I think she's a prime candidate for a pulmonary ambulus." Eddie said, having overheard the nurses when she grabbed Bailey's patient chart.
"How would you diagnose?" Webber asked intrigued.
"Spiral CT, VQ scan, provide O2, dose with Heparin, and consult for an IVC filter." Eddie replied promptly.
"Do exactly as she says, then tell your resident that I want you off this case." Webber said to Alex, before heading towards Eddie. "Good work, Dr. Sousa, very impressive."
"Thank you, sir," Eddie said with a smile, not ignorant to the looks her fellow interns, especially the man she just showed up.
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Towards the end of her sift, Eddie sat with Cristina, George, and Izzie as they watched Katie Bryce's surgery. She tried to push down the bitter feeling towards the blonde intern getting to scrub. So, she decided not to focus on that fact, instead on the surgery going on. She could still learn in the viewing room just as much in the OR.
The surgery went off without a hitch and Katie Bryce would go on to live a successful life with many more beauty pageants in the future.
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After the surgery Cristina, Meredith, and Eddie all made up from their anger over the surgery. Feelings were high from the lack of sleep and adrenaline they were all experiencing from their first shift. After that, she changed back into her civilian clothes and made her way back to her apartment.
It was crappy, but it was her's. She had put basically her life savings into this small studio apartment, and luckily, the small inheritance her grandmother passed onto her was still collecting interest so she wasn't stuck eating Raman noodles and white bread for the next few months of hard-core saving. Her furniture was one of the few things her mom and Step-Stan said she could take, it wasn't expensive but sturdy. And it was all hers.
In her few weeks here she put a lot of effort making the queen sized bed, crappy futon, coffee table, and three bookshelves feel like home. Her personal oasis to unwind.
She looked at the three items she had swiped from the hospital. Okay, it wasn't her best moment, but these things were expensive, and in the hospital they were free. Especially with her five finger discount, she supposed.
She bit her thumb as she waited for the timer to go off.
When she did she shakily turned over each stick with a shaking hand.
All three said the same thing.
Pregnant.
Eddie Sousa was pregnant.
And, of course it had to be with the handsome stranger from her one and only one night stand right before she left for Seattle from New York.
Oh, fuck.
What was she going to do?